Tubular labels or bands can be supplied in cut lengths and fed from a magazine to the application machine, or supplied in continuous length on a roll, in which case the tubular supply is cut into pieces of a desired length in the applying machine. Tubular labels and bands are typically formed of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) or polyethylene (PE) resin. The process of applying a tubular label or band from a supply roll to a container involves the steps of drawing a length of tubular material from the supply, cutting the length of tubular material from the supply, reconfiguring the tubular material from a flat to an open cross section and placing the open cross section tubular material over the container in the selected position. The material may be heat shrinkable, in which case the tube is placed loosely over the container and subsequently shrunk.
A machine for applying tubular bands to containers is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,966,164 to Navarro. In a typical cycle of the Navarro type machine a container trips a sensor to start the cycle. A tooling block (or former) holds a previously cut and expanded tubular band that is held in the tooling block by a gate. The cycle trip causes the gate to be retracted and the film feeds so that the “next” advancing film segment entering the tooling block pushes the cut band out of the tooling block onto the passing container. The gate is extended and a knife cuts the film once film feed cycle is complete and a flow of air urges the cut band into an expanded cylindrical shape within the tooling block so that the system is “loaded” with an expanded cut band inside tooling block that is ready to be moved onto a container upon detection of the next container to run another cycle. This operation and arrangement of using the film feed to push the tubular band from the tooling block can lead to film jams causing the machine to completely crash.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,996,954 to Farley describes a machine in which a separate pusher is used to move the cut bands out of the tooling block onto the passing container. In a typical cycle, a container trips a sensor to start a cycle. A cylindrical plunger or pusher is extended into the tooling block to push a previously cut band out of the block onto a container. The plunger retracts out of tubular tooling block and the tooling block is moved to a “home position” that is aligned with a flat film feed path. Flat film feeds into tube. A knife cuts the film once film feed cycle is complete and a flow of air urges the cut band into an expanded cylindrical shape within the tooling block so that the system is “loaded” with an expanded cut band inside tooling block that is ready to be moved onto a container. The loaded tubular tooling block is then moved to a “plunge ready” position that is offset from the flat film fee path and the system waits for the next container to trigger the cycle. This operation and arrangement, in which the tooling block shuttles back and forth, reduces jams, but is rather slow and limited in speed due to shuttling the tooling assembly between the home and plunge ready positions.
It would be desirable to provide tubular banding machine that has limited jams but at the same time is capable of more productive banding speeds.